Rip it up and start again?: The contemporary relevance of the 2005 UNESCO Convention on Cultural Diversity

Since its adoption in 2005, the UNESCO Convention on the Protection and Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions has become a central reference point for cultural policy around the world. However, there remains little scholarly scrutiny of how effectively this instrument frames the international policy agenda around culture, economy and development under contemporary conditions of rapid, and contested, global transformation. Through a critical review of the core content of the Convention, and some of the experiences gained from its implementation over the first decade, one of the arguments proposed in the paper is that the Convention has had the effect of reinforcing a one-dimensional, ‘economistic’ language of cultural and public policy, in a way which offers limited progressive intellectual or political resource for cultural policy today. In response, we outline key areas where new thinking might be undertaken and from which UNESCO might offer new resources and framings for global cultural policy. We argue less for ‘ripping it up and starting again’ and more for the need to, critically, take stock and explore new ways forward in the search for progressive responses to the current conjuncture.